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4th millennium BCEReputable source · 2 sourcesWell documented

Uruk Grows into the World's First True City

By the fourth millennium BCE, Uruk had outgrown every settlement that came before it

On the timeline · around 4th millennium BCE · Settlement to the First CitiesSettlement to the First CitiesSumerian City-States and the Akkadian EmpireUruk Grows into the World's First True City5,500 BCE5,000 BCE4,500 BCE4,000 BCE3,500 BCE3,000 BCE

Quick facts

Modern site
Warka, Iraq
Uruk period
c. 4000-3100 BCE
Key temple
Eanna precinct, dedicated to Inanna
Tradition
City of King Gilgamesh

What happened

According to the Sumerian King List, Uruk was founded by King Enmerkar around 5000 to 4500 BCE, but it was during the Uruk period, roughly 4000 to 3100 BCE, that the city outgrew every settlement before it and became, for a time, the most important city in Mesopotamia. World History Encyclopedia describes it as one of the most important cities, at one point the most important, in the ancient world, home to the Eanna temple precinct dedicated to the goddess Inanna and later famous as the city of King Gilgamesh. Uruk is also credited with developing the cylinder seal, a carved stone cylinder rolled across wet clay to leave a repeating image that marked personal property or served as a signature, a sign that individual identity and ownership had become concepts worth formally recording.

Why it matters

Uruk is the clearest example anywhere of a village growing into an urban center with specialized labor, organized religion, and eventually a writing system, the same features that define every city that followed it. The cylinder seal's role as an early personal signature points to something new: a society organizing itself around individual property and reputation, not just kinship.

How we know

Uruk has been excavated since the early 20th century, and its Eanna precinct's sequence of monumental mudbrick buildings, along with thousands of cylinder seals and seal impressions recovered there, lets archaeologists trace the city's growth level by level.

Sources

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Part of a timelineAncient Mesopotamia30 events · The land between the rivers where farming villages became cities, cuneiform became writing, and kings first wrote their laws downView all →
Uruk Grows into the World's First True City · Ancient Mesopotamia · SourcedStory